Monday, April 20, 2009

Reinventing the Wheel

Despite an abbreviated work session this morning, I found time to download and
install the latest version of CMap Tools, an
application I grew fond of during coursework and then inexplicably uninstalled
twenty months ago, just after I used it to map the dissertation I've been
working at ever since. About the latest version: what's not to love? I thought
about it in the first place because I had a few ideas for a new map-sketch, the
raw start to an article I intend to draft before summer's end.

I'll say more about the application and the article another time, perhaps,
but all of this is a roundabout way of getting to the more pressing issue:
because I re-installed CMap Tools, I also rediscovered an old, forgotten
myscot wheel
folder. The myscot wheel is an idiosyncratic cluster of mascots from programs where
I've worked and studied, a wheel because the figures are arranged in a circle.
For just over two months, since mid-February, I've had cause to add to it,
celebratory cause.

The new, improved wheel gives it away. As the culmination of my
job search, eight weeks ago I accepted a position for this coming fall as an Assistant Professor of
English at Eastern Michigan University.
In addition to being so warmly welcomed by great colleagues and preparing for a
job I look forward to starting, the move to Ypsi-Arbor later this summer also means something of a homecoming for me. I
grew up in Michigan and have always referred to it proudly as home.

As tempted as I am to gush on, I'll refrain for now and instead
loosely commit to a series--eventual entries on the position, on the courses I will be
teaching in the fall, on the market and anything worth sharing about how I
approached it. But there you have today's circuit: CMap Tools, an updated myscot wheel,
and an upbeat announcement about joining EMU.